Channeling the Past

Politicizing History in Postwar America

Erik Christiansen

Publication Year: 2013

After the turmoil of the Great Depression and World War II, Americans looked to the nation’s more distant past for lessons to inform its uncertain future. By applying recent and emerging techniques in mass communication—including radio and television programs and commercial book clubs—American elites working in media, commerce, and government used history to confer authority on their respective messages. With insight and wit, Erik Christiansen uncovers in Channeling the Past the ways that powerful corporations rewrote history to strengthen the postwar corporate state, while progressives, communists, and other leftists vied to make their own versions of the past more popular. Christiansen looks closely at several notable initiatives—CBS’s flashback You Are There program; the Smithsonian Museum of American History, constructed in the late 1950s; the Cavalcade of America program sponsored by the Du Pont Company; the History Book Club; and the Freedom Train, a museum on rails that traveled the country from 1947 to 1949 exhibiting historic documents and flags, including original copies of the U.S. Constitution and the Magna Carta. It is often said that history is written by the victors, but Christiansen offers a more nuanced perspective: history is constantly remade to suit the objectives of those with the resources to do it. He provides dramatic evidence of sophisticated calculations that influenced both public opinion and historical memory, and shows that Americans’ relationships with the past changed as a result.

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

This is a history
of the usable
past in the postwar
United
States.
Or rather,
it is
a collection
of five interrelated
histories
of sometimes
conflicting,
sometimes
overlapping
usable
pasts. In each story, a particular
group of Americans
purported
to teach their rendering
of the vital lessons
of history
to the public.
The
large number
of popular
historical
productions
in this period,
the unique
ways ...

Introduction: History’s Past Presence

In the spring
of 1947, President
Harry Truman
formally
launched
the domestic
Cold War by issuing
Executive
Order 9835, which established
the federal
government’s
employee
loyalty
program.
In November,
the House Committee
on Un-American Activities
launched
its investigation
of the motion
picture ...

1. The History Book Club Offers the Past as an “Image of Ourselves”

The moment
seemed
propitious.
In 1947 historian
Bernard
DeVoto
sensed
that there was an awakening
of a “growing
national
consciousness
about
the American
past. Not only readers
but writers
are turning
to it in increasing
numbers,”
which meant a “vast production
of books about our past.”1 A contemporary
referred
to a postwar
“boom in American ...

2. Mythologizing History on Du Pont’s Cavalcade of America

So began a 1941 Cavalcade
of America
radio play about Davy Crockett.
These
words also serve as an introduction
to the Cavalcade
itself.
Blending
together
history
and myth, accentuating
nationalism
and patriotism,
and defining
who and what belongs
in the American
story, the Du Pont Company’s
two-decade-long ...

3. History, News, and You Are There

In 1953, soon after Du Pont first aired Cavalcade
of America
on television,
another
historical
program,
CBS News’s
You Are There, also moved from
radio to television.
You Are There’s
historical
interpretations
presented
1950s
audiences
with leftist
political
ideology
almost
exactly
opposite
Du Pont’s.
On ...

4. The Freedom Train’s Narrow-Gauge Iconography

This is the story of an unusual
form of public
history,
one in which the
past was delivered
on railcars
and also through
“all methods
of mass
persuasion.”1 From September
1947 to January
1949, a “Freedom
Train” carried
126 of America’s
most vital historical
documents
to 322 towns and cities
in all
48 states.
More than a third of the population
participated
in some part of the ...

5. Building a “National Shrine” at the National Museum of American History

More than ever before,
Americans
in the 1950s visited
and learned
history
from museums.
Dissemination
increasingly
supplanted
preservation
as the primary
purpose
of the museum,
as curators
sought
new ways of reaching
the public,
and museums
became
prominent
tourist
attractions.1 A “new ...

Conclusion: Once and Future Truths

When we venture
into the past we engage
in a sort of time travel.
One of
the sacred
myths of science
fiction
is that time travelers
can alter the
course
of history,
in unpredictable
ways. When we venture
into the past through
“authentic”
historical
dramas
such as Cavalcade
of America
or visit the “real” ...

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